iGeneTRAiN start recruiting transplant patients and their family members into a wearable device study to detect SARS-CoV-2 and other post-transplant infections

Jan 7, 2021

The increasing global prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19 disease pandemic pose significant concerns for clinical management of pediatric and adult solid organ transplant recipients (SOTR). Wearable devices that can measure physiologic changes in heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature, respiratory and sleep patterns and blood oxygen saturation, have shown utility for the early detection of infection before clinical presentation of symptoms. Algorithms developed recently by our collaborators in Stanford and elsewhere used wearable data to show that SARS-CoV-2 can detectable up to 10 days before clinical symptoms in >80% of adults.

Ongoing studies testing the utility of wearable fitness tracking devices for early detection of SARS-CoV-2 and other infections in the general population are now underway in a number of pediatric transplant sites and we are expanding the effort into a number of adult transplant sites.

We started enrolling on this project in kidney, heart and liver transplant patients and their household members (up to 2200 subjects) in December 2020. All subjects are using wearable devices, and complete a short daily questionnaire. The transplant subjects have additional infectious disease data collected from their electronic medical records. If there is interest in your site participating in this project, please do contact us. (bkeating@upenn.edu)

Why is this important? Early detection of SARS-CoV-2, influenza, and other pathogens in SOTR, and their household members, could allow early interventions such as self-isolation and early clinical management of relevant infection(s).

Who will benefit? We envision that these projects will benefit transplant recipients and their families by allowing early detection of infection (for more details on these studies please look at the wearable sub-section in the ‘FOR RESEARCHERS’ section).

Posted on: January 7, 2021, by : Eyas